Vehicles hit by vandals at south Fort Myers shopping center

It was a wild night for vandals in a usually busy Lee County shopping center as they smashed several car windshields.

Deputies responded to the report of five cars with similar damage in Market Square on US-41 and Daniels Parkway late Monday.

One customer at Duffy's restaurant reported that his windshield had been smashed. Deputies say the damage was most likely done by a tire iron.

The customer was parked in the south parking lot where, according to Duffy's staff, there were no surveillance cameras.

After searching the entire parking lot, deputies said they couldn't find any other cars damaged until they received four other calls of vandalism in the Target parking lot nearby. The calls came in just moments from one another.

"I was super surprised. I'm here like every year, and I would never expect anything like that; it is so nice here, and there are great people, I just would never expect that," said Gracie Dexter of Chaska, Minnesota.

Crimes rarely make sense, but it's what happened in these parking lots that have some still wondering why?

“Never would think that anything would happen here like that. Not just to go through and break windows,” said Ruth Ahearn of Lee County.

Cameras at both locations failed to capture the suspect(s), but some said it's not enough to keep them away.

“I think it’s a little prank or something that is going on. You just have to be careful no matter where you're at,” said Linda Damico of Fort Myers.

Others said broken windshields and hundreds of dollars in repairs is far from a laughing matter.

“There’s no respect for life and no respect for our property. It’s very sad what’s happening in our country,” Ahern said.

Both incident reports from Monday night make references to one another, but only the report from Duffy's shows that deputies do have a suspect.